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Hello – I’ve been back a few days, but waiting for my brain to solidify.

I’m sure you guessed from previous posts – I hate to fly – I can only say I am glad I sucked it up and took the chance. Not only did I learn tons of valuable editing information from Margie, but I met four wonderful writer women.

Here’s how things progressed:

The adventure started before I even got on the plane:

The shuttle company called at 6:40am right on time to say they were in front of my house – wrong, Map-whatever tells you that you are at my house when you turn onto my street – so here I ‘m standing in the parking lot waving to catch the drivers attention.

10 minutes later we’re at the next stop – lights are out, house is dark, driver blows he horn – suddenly the lights come on and the garage opens – it was still another 5 minutes before we saw a human and another 5 minutes before he dragged his butt to the van!

Next stop was only two people – but 5 giant suitcases and 10 people wanting to say good bye and hug – so another 15 minutes. I will say I was impressed by the drivers’ ability to make a 5 point turn on that narrow street with cars parked on both sides.

Made it to the airport with 45 minutes till boarding – yeah! And then everything got goobered up because no one had notified the boarding personnel of the three passengers that needed assistance

I will note here that I fully enjoy the new scanning ticket system that prevents people in a later boarding group from cutting in line – buzzzzzz – nope back you go!

Half an hour into the flight we’re told we are going to detour around a storm because the pilot didn’t want to fly over or through it – hey, fine with me – so we were only a little late getting into Denver. Have you ever landed coming in through a rain cloud? You see nothing, nothing, nothing, oh shit – ground. So glad I had an aisle seat – and I swear I felt the plane skid a little when we the wheels hit the pavement and the brakes came on

After a brief tram ride to the terminal, following there rest of the traveling sheep (hey I had no clue where anything was) I got to meet Margie! She is wonderful and friendly and I made me feel very welcome – then I got to meet 3 others in the class – wonderful people one and all.

And you wouldn’t belve what we saw he was here picking up someone!

Off to lunch and then off to Margie’s – around the outskirts of Denver, through Golden and up the mountain – the view would have been nicer if it hadn’t started raining

One thing to mention if you ever plan on taking an immersion class with Margie – the only down time you get to adjust is during the ride to the lodge and the time it takes to check in – then right to work. And I do mean work.

We got to meet the last group member at Margie’s house

I won’t go into the details of the class – you’ll have to take one yourself – it will melt your brain but it’s worth it (even if at times you feel wholly inadequate and start mumbling “I suck” repeatedly – I wasn’t alone in this which made me feel better) – so here’s the highlights of so of the things we did other than work

Waking up the view of mountains in the distance

Being there as one of the group received notice that she had won the Rising Star Contest – talk about cataloguing visceral responses!

All of the wonderful meals Mr. Tom (Margie’s husband) made for us – and it wasn’t easy: 2 vegans, one with a gluten allergy and me with a no beef no spice diet – only one of us had an “I can eat anything” diet.

Watching it snow

Many, many “Squirrel” moments – that is to say distractions

Calypso the dachshund

Dinner at the Wondervu Café

Alone time editing with Margie

Not a highlight but worth mentioning – my last night there I didn’t get to sleep until after 2am because I had sex-capades going on in the room to the left and party in the room to the right – I was not a chipper person that last day

And then it was time to go home – I think I was the last to go. I got to the airport (thank you Margie) with plenty of time to walk around and try to find some of the artwork and statues. Never did find the giant Anubis. Took some pictures and had a cookie for dinner.

Once on the flight I settled in, put on my headphones and tried to doze – those pesky over night flights – but just as the flight attendants were finishing drink service the pilot came on and announced we were going to have some turbulence – for the next HOUR or so! We’d only been in the air for an hour and a half if that and it’s a three hour flight – great. To give you an idea of the jostling, my FitBit registered 158 “steps” during the flight – subtract 20 of those for my one and only trip to the washroom and the rest was turbulence. I was not happy. And it was raining as we landed.

Of course baggage claim was clear on the other side of the airport – have you ever been in an airport at one in the morning? Its freaky – no one’s around except the cleaning staff.

Thankfully the shuttle counter was near baggage claim – and I roll down there to find a crowd of irate people – crap. Apparently their flight had been delayed in landing because of the rain and they missed their connection – needed a hotel – needed a ride to said hotel – and none of them could come up with the fee (individually) to pay for their portion of the shuttle – they had been given a group price and the guy wouldn’t split it into individual receipts – so finally one person agreed to charge the whole thing and they could pay him at the hotel after they figured it out. About this time the person at the other shuttle company noticed me waiting and notified the counter guy I was waiting on that I had a reservation (as in pre paid). Still had to wait. Got the loud people over to the waiting are, checked me in, said it would be a few minutes.

Next thing I knew the loud group was being loaded onto the next available shuttle and I was being told that now I would have to wait an HOUR! I guess they wanted to get the rowdies out of there – they were starting to complain about everything. Thankfully the manager for the other shuttle company said that his driver could take me and the guy that was also waiting. So we had some voided sales and new charges to do and then off to the shuttle. Ok, here’s the cherry on the sundae – the driver opens the van door, in the front row of seats is ONE older lady and two open seats, before I can even put my foot on the running board she announces “There are seats in the back” (the center row was already full). So I scramble into the back. The guy that got on with me snagged himself on the shoulder strap that this woman had already put on and crossed over the path to the back row – she snap’s “Are you trying to choke me?” – the guy said “yes” and sat down. This lady spent the next hour plus running her mouth – “Driver roll up the window I don’t want the air on me” , “Its already 2am I need to be at work at 6am” , “I see grocery bags up front, driver did you stop and get groceries before you picked us up?”, and on, and on. I’m in the back saying “shut up” under my breath.

I thank the travel Gods for the driver dropping me off before her – a fact that she was NOT happy about, and I heard all about it as I got out, retrieved my suitcase and wheelied up the sidewalk.

HOME! 3am – I slept until 1pm and then went to bed at 10pm, when I got up again around 11am the next day I was somewhat human – even went for a walk before it rained

My happy moment was realizing that despite having been away and not moving around as much as I usually do (walking and such) that I only gained a a pound and a half and still stayed number 1 in our office FitBit challenge.

And now that my brain has had a few days of work (as in my 9-5 job, work) I think next week I’ll be able to started editing and applying all the useful knowledge I learned in class – cross your fingers

So if I haven’t completely bord you follow the angel to back to the welcome page